I have this one year-round. No decorations up/no theme chosen/no lights, fog, audio queued up. And the sun is dipping low. A few of the really young trick or treaters are already starting to walk around with their parents...man. I get stressed out just thinking about it.

yeah..such a strange thing.a group of people sharing the same type dream.Mine is always about the sun setting and kids starting to show up and me realizing I have NOTHING set up. And i'm trying to put out lights and make a haunt out of nothing.dreadful.

Totally. I can only speak for myself, but it maybe spotlights how for as much of what we haunters do is for our own fun, it's also meant for others' enjoyment, to give folks something magical in their own neighborhood (especially kids.) It's a performance we put on at least partially for an audience, and we want it to be good. Especially when it's something we do for long enough that the community comes to expect it as a fixture of their local Halloween.

No other holiday has this thing where certain people combine set design, lighting, costume, audio etc. into a miniature production for their neighbors. There's always the house that goes all-out for Christmas I guess, but IMHO Halloween is pretty unique in the brand of homemade creativity that it brings out in everyday people. Coolest holiday.

Mine actually came true last year! Heading into the week I had recurring nightmares about being physically unable to get everything put up in time, bad knees. I started putting everything out about 11am and everything seemed fine but by 3 I could barely stand. Eventually my family arrived and put it out for me, but a lot of it never made it up. In my dream I'm struggling to hang a scarecrow, reach, reach, reach and eventually collapse to the ground like a defeated boxer in a corner. I raise my eyes to see a large crowd of kids standing in rows silently, one, then steadily the rest, start screaming and screaming as I begin to sob.